So Sunday morning I hitched a lift with Tony Harms and Jamie Britton and headed out to East Hanningfield which was a double bonus as it meant that I could also shoot their Pavilion for my Pavilion Typology project.
We arrived first and the weather was classic early September - puffy white Cumulus clouds set against a blue sky.
Hanningfield Game.
I volunteered to score and did a pretty good job of it,
filling in the book and putting up the scores on the scoreboard at the same
time. I even got parts of the scoring wrong and was able to figure out what I’d
done and reconcile the whole thing quite easily and when it was all added up at
the end it all worked out fine. A massive improvement from last year and I now
like to score especially as it keeps me out of having to umpire! That went well
and we seemed to do okay and we finished with a reasonable score 170ish? We had a nice tea in their
lovely pavilion/clubhouse and took to the field on a beautiful sunny afternoon.
Earlier in the day I’d watched 4 Buzzards soaring on the
updrafts above the pitch something which would have been unheard of 20 years
ago, but Buzzards along with Kites, Peregrines, Hobbies and Merlins are all
making a strong comeback in Essex despite the fact that it has a number of
large urban areas. Thankfully in between our urban and industrial areas, Essex
has some surprisingly beautiful and classic countryside (Think Constables
Haywain).
Having been a late addition to this Sunday side and seeing
that it was made up of some quality players, I didn’t know whether I’d get to
bowl? I had no idea of how regular this side was and how they’d done over the
season, so whether Jack would throw me the ball or not remained to be seen. The
obvious bowlers all bowled first and then Jack indicated that I'd get an over or two.
This game was on Sunday after the Belhus game the day before, so whether that was a contributory factor or not I'm not sure or convinced as I played two games back to back earlier in the season and did okay, wasn't knackered at all? Or was it the Yips? Was it the fact that I was playing in a team full up with first and 2nd team players including the clubs best bowler Luke Dawe (Finger Spinner)? Or was it because this was one of the first attempts with the new re-configured bowling action? Whatever it was - it was embarrassing - wides, balls landing half way down the strip and bouncing twice - all those horrific things that happen to wrist spinners when you start out. I went for a few fours and then hoped I'd settle down a bit in the 2nd over, but the same thing pretty much happened again and I thought that I'd be off after that. But, no, Jack gave me another over and changed the field around a bit. The 3rd over was marginally better as I went back to bowling off of one step and it worked and in the end I had 5 maybe six overs and pulled it back a bit. But to be honest so many runs were piled on during that spell I thought I'd lost us the game. Meanwhile at the other end Luke Dawe had started taking wickets on his way to another fiver-fer.
With Luke bowling well, he pulled it back and once the two good blokes that I was bowling against had been dismissed, there was a massive collapse and we won the game easily.
Check out my other blog here - this is all about Leg-spin bowling and nothing else. Double click on the image.
This game was on Sunday after the Belhus game the day before, so whether that was a contributory factor or not I'm not sure or convinced as I played two games back to back earlier in the season and did okay, wasn't knackered at all? Or was it the Yips? Was it the fact that I was playing in a team full up with first and 2nd team players including the clubs best bowler Luke Dawe (Finger Spinner)? Or was it because this was one of the first attempts with the new re-configured bowling action? Whatever it was - it was embarrassing - wides, balls landing half way down the strip and bouncing twice - all those horrific things that happen to wrist spinners when you start out. I went for a few fours and then hoped I'd settle down a bit in the 2nd over, but the same thing pretty much happened again and I thought that I'd be off after that. But, no, Jack gave me another over and changed the field around a bit. The 3rd over was marginally better as I went back to bowling off of one step and it worked and in the end I had 5 maybe six overs and pulled it back a bit. But to be honest so many runs were piled on during that spell I thought I'd lost us the game. Meanwhile at the other end Luke Dawe had started taking wickets on his way to another fiver-fer.
With Luke bowling well, he pulled it back and once the two good blokes that I was bowling against had been dismissed, there was a massive collapse and we won the game easily.
Check out my other blog here - this is all about Leg-spin bowling and nothing else. Double click on the image.
